It is common that in order to configure a remote network element, an administrator of the remote node needs to log into the remote network element to perform the configuration. If the device is not reachable through a public IP address, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection or a tunnel needs to be established with the remote network element before the administrator can log into the remote network element. Therefore, it is common for network element to send IP packets to a management server to work around the network address translation (NAT) issues. There are many other techniques known to those skilled in the arts for NAT transversal, such as those discussed in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAT traversal.
When an administrator needs to configure a large number of remote network elements, it may require a lot of the administrator's effort as the administrator needs to set up many VPNs or tunnels or use NAT traversal techniques to communicate with the large number of remote network elements.
To the make the matters worse, if a network element can only be configured through a web page, the administrator needs to first enter the user identification and authentication information manually through the web page and then click through many buttons and enter information to configure the network element. When there are a large number of network elements, the process to manually enter user identification, authentication information, and configuration information may take large amount of time.